Unlikely Neighbors
Just across Doheny Road from Liona Boyd and her husband, Jack, live some of the oddest neighbors in Beverly Hills.
"You expect a little old English lady to live here," she says. "Little do you know it's the prince of darkness."
It's the family of Mr. and Mrs. John Michael "Ozzy" Osbourne, Richard Schlesinger reports.
Like a lot of his Beverly Hills neighbors, Ozzy Osbourne has an impressive show business resume. He was lead singer for the '70s band Black Sabbath. More recently, he's the star of MTV's hit reality series, "The Osbournes."
The dialogue on the show is so dirty, it sounds more like Morse code than a TV show. But it's one of the most popular shows on cable: The exploits of Ozzy, his wife Sharon, and their kids Kelly and Jack attract about 7 million viewers every week, and allow people on the block, like Liona and Jack, to keep up with the Osbournes.
Liona feels a connection with her new neighbor. She's a musician, too, a classical guitarist with gold records of her own.
The recycled fame of the Heavy Metal star has caused some trouble on the block. Fans line up to see where they live. Unfortunately, for the fans at least, the Osbournes are in Europe this week.
"They wanted to go and escape the madness," says Liona. But they might have been trying to get away from their own bad neighbors, with whom the Osbournes had a now infamous food fight, with a baked ham, that millions of people in the TV audience saw.
The neighbors even called the cops. But the Osbournes' old neighbor from their old neighborhood has only fond memories of the family: squeaky clean Pat Boone, an unlikely fan of the down and dirty Osbournes.
"We got along fine, which is to say we hardly ever saw each other," says Boone, laughing. "Whenever I was there, I never heard that language." Like Boone, Liona and Jack are getting used to their new neighbors.
"They're really friendly. In fact they asked us (if) we'd go over and have afternoon tea with them," says Liona.
"We're pleased to have him in the neighborhood," says Jack.